Courage Comes in All Colours

I haven't written anything in a verra long time.

I am inspired to write today because Alesia Holliday
(Alyssa Day), an Author I have loved to read for years,
Shared that she has struggled with depression her whole life.

She has recently shared this with family and close friends and today shared with the world via her blog- alyssaday.blogspot.com

I was overcome with emotion when I read her post because I too have struggled with depression my whole life.

My whole world came crashing down on me, 13 years ago.
In retrospect I am able to see that being assaulted 2 years before the big Crash and the PTSD I struggled with over the course of those 2 years buckled the buttresses of defense I had spent a lifetime erecting.

My Masks were so very good. Perfected really.

I lost it all.  My Job, My so called friends, My Whole Life as I knew it and without it and the identity I had built I did not want to live
.
The depression had spent a lifetime teaching me that I was not good enuf.
I had spent a lifetime trying harder at everything to compensate for that deficit.
I was the Avis Rent a Car of Life.  Their slogan was 'we try harder'.

I had been seeing a psychiatrist to deal with the devastating effects of the assault and concurrent PTSD for 2 years.
I was a Registered Nurse, and I was removed from work as unfit to perform my duties,also accused of theft of time for not keeping time sheets accurately and accessing banked overtime without the proper authorization.
It was an Earthquake with a Tsunami that completely erased the person I was.

I spent a month in a psychiatric ward learning how to not wanna be dead.
For a nurse who had spent a lifetime teaching people the tools to recover from
emotional and physical traumas I was beyond humiliated.
Way Beyond.
Dead in My Soul Beyond.
Everything completely Shut Down.
A Blessing from the Universe it turns out.
Without the complete shut down I would be dead.
It was a lousy, painful, ugly existence, but it was an existence.

Over the next weeks I will excavate these last 13 years and prepare myself for what comes next.
Whatever it may be.
I read a quote on Saturday from Jonathan Safran Froer

You Cannot Protect Yourself From Sadness
Without Protecting Yourself From Happiness.

That quote unlocked something inside me and I had an overwhelming sense of destiny flood thru me.
These words were for me.
 I was still living but I was not alive.
I was using exercise and nutrition to cope with the depression and it would keep everything in a kind of balance where I didn't want to commit suicide but I also felt I could not suffer any sadness or I wouldn't survive.

Turns Out We Survive an awful lot of sadness and loss.
In the past year I have lost My Mother and My Best Friend Lori.

Crushing Losses, butttt I'm still here.

Winter's always a bigger struggle because the darkness amplifies the depression and I am basically reduced to minute to minute survival, and on a good day, day to day.

Buuuttt I'm still here.

Sooo I do not know what comes next, but I know something does.

I know I want to Honour My Friend/Angel Lori by finding a new way to live.

By not protecting myself from Sadness, with the faint glimmer that some
Happiness my sneak through the darkness if I do not actively reinforce the shields
of Protection.

Sooo Life, I'mmma Coming for you..

Alesia, this one is for you.
Bless You for being the first ray of hope to sneak past my shields.

Thank You Universe for bringing me Alesia's Books to soothe me during my struggle.

Yours in Pursuit of Balance
Mar